


Weapons

by Walutahanga



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Random Encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two genetically engineered warriors walk into a bar... okay so there's no bar. </p>
<p>Or; the one where Bucky Barnes walks in on Skye being arrested by Gonzales' Shield and takes offence at anyone being dehumanized as a weapon.  He put up with enough of that crap for seventy years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weapons

**Author's Note:**

> Set post Winter-Soldier and contains spoilers for Season 2 of Shield. Also has some speculation for future developments, so some details may soon be Jossed.

Barnes knows about Shield.

Or rather, the Shield _s_.

Following the explosive destruction of the original (which Barnes admittedly had a hand in), at least two parties had set themselves in its wake, styling themselves as the new overseeing entity to protect the world. Their struggle for control has sent out ripples that were obvious if you knew what to listen out for. Barnes so far has kept his distance from the whole business. Even if he were interested in working for another Shield (which he isn't), he doesn't care about disputes over how to deal with Gifted people. His priorities involve grappling with an infant sense of identity and trying to decide what he’s going to do about Steve Rogers.

That said, he keeps an eye on the matter, and so quickly picks up the encrypted chatter on his radio oneday. It’s not concerning him, but it’s in his vicinity. As the asset, his default policy would be to remain at a distance until it’s over, but he suspects that Bucky would be more likely to move _toward_ the danger. Bucky had curiosity, which the asset did not, and Barnes is trying to be more like Bucky these days.

Therefore he shadows several agents to a coffee shop several blocks from his place of residence. He tugs the cap low on his face while ordering his coffee, then sits at a table against the wall where he has a good view of everything.

He quickly identifies six agents and their target. She’s slim, dark-haired, and has the wide-eyed jittery look of someone running on very little sleep. He wonders briefly what she’s done to get the attention of one or both Shields, but decides he doesn’t care. He’s more interesting in seeing how they operate, in the event that they come after him.

The target has positioned herself not far from him, in the corner where she can see who comes in and out. She’d tensed as each undercover agent entered the store, so she apparently knows what to look for. She has a bag beside her but her hands are on the table in plain view. Her fingers are flexing in and out in a nervous tic. Whoever taught her did a shitty job; Barnes would have taught her to hold a weapon out of sight.

It’s a random thought, more akin to Bucky than the asset, and Barnes folds it away for later consideration. For now, he watches.

A new agent enters the shop. Male, late forties, wearing the anonymous suit of government agencies everywhere. He walks over to the target’s table and sits down.

“Hello, Skye,” he says. He speaks quietly but Barnes can hear him perfectly well over the customer chatter, clank of plates, and rattle of cutlery. “Or do you prefer Daisy these days?”

“I prefer Agent,” the girl says tightly, and Barnes re-categorises the situation; not the arrest of a hostile, but a clash between agencies. Interesting.

 “You’re no agent.” There’s no heat to the man’s tone, just an amused contempt. “No more than that alien-spawned creature is a Director.”

“Better an alien-spawned creature that a xenophobic asshole. How is Gonzales anyway?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” There’s a clink as he sets something on the table. “There are two ways to do this, Skye. The right way involves you putting on these inhibitors and us walking out of here. The wrong way is a lot more painful, for everyone.”

“And then what? I’ve seen what you do to people like me.”

“People like you?” The amused contempt turns cold. “Let me enlighten you, Skye. Coulson might let you believe that you are a Shield agent, but the truth is that you are a _weapon_.”

Barnes’ hand, wrapped about his cardboard cup, squeezes a little too tight, slopping coffee over the rim. The man’s voice keeps talking, its sentiments unconsciously echoing the same ones that had been repeated to the asset over the years.

“…you were literally bred and born for it. The sooner you acknowledge and submit to that purpose, the better it will be for everyone, including yourself…”

Barnes stands up. He notes the position of the agents in the room, the glass windows offering access to snipers, the exits, as he walks over to the target’s table.

“Now that ain’t no way to talk to a lady.” The words come out in a clipped Brooklyn accent. That’s Bucky again, speaking through him, but for once he and Barnes are in perfect agreement.

The agent flashes a badge in his direction without looking up.

“Keep walking, friend.”

Barnes pretends to stumble, flinging his hot coffee in the agent’s face. As he yelps in pain, Barnes yanks the gun out of the man’s belt, spins and shoots two agents rising to their feet. It fires too quietly for a regular gun, shooting blue bolts of light instead of bullets, but the agents go down just as fast.

Barnes drags the agent out of the booth and jerks him in front of him as a human shield as the other four agents draw weapons. Customers are screaming, throwing themselves flat on the ground. The girl, proving to have some sense, has done the same, pulling her bag down with her.

“Sergeant Barnes?” One of the other agents says. This one’s a woman, and keeping her voice admirably level. “It is Sergeant Barnes, isn’t it? The Winter Soldier?”

“You’re half right.”

The girl has unzipped her bag and is rifling inside.

“Sir, we aren’t here to take you in. We’re here for the Inhuman.”

Barnes doesn’t answer. The woman continues, voice stronger.

“I know this must look very reassuring, after what happened under Nick Fury, but we really are the good guys here. That girl is too dangerous to be left loose.”

The girl has pulled something out, round and fat, about the size of two fists. She turns the top half and it starts blinking with blue light.

“And what happens?” Barnes says. “If I let you take her?”

“We keep her safely contained, away from the world. With sufficient study, we might even find a way to put her abilities to good use. But right now, what you have there is a dangerous weapon that could go off at any moment.”

Barnes meets the eyes of the girl. She’s counting silently off on her fingers so he can see.

“Funny,” he says out loud. “’cos your weapon looks like a person to me.”

The girl flings the object and Barnes chucks the agent away, throwing himself over the girl. There’s a dull boom, but no breaking glass or explosion. When he looks up, the agents are on the ground, eyes open but still breathing.

“What the hell was that, doll?” He says, standing up and hauling the girl to her feet. The girl swings her bag onto her shoulder.

“Icer grenade. Puts them down, but doesn’t kill them. Lets go.”

She heads toward the kichens and Barnes follows, noting that at least she has the sense not to go out the front door where a sniper could be stationed.

“Got any more of those grenades?” He asks.

“Sure, I know the inventors. Well… the people who _invented_ the icer, which was used by someone else to invent the grenade, but those guys were dicks and FitzSimmons deserve the credit more.”

She yanks at a door, finds it locked, and holds her palm up, facing it. The lock explodes, and the girl opens the door.

“I’m Skye, by the way.”

“I know. That guy talked too much.”

“Yeah, he’s an asshole. Thanks for not killing him, by the way. That would’ve created more problems than it solved.”

Barnes elects not to mention that the only reason no one is dead is because the weapon he stole happened to be the non-fatal kind.

Out back there’s a car parked across the alley and two agents waiting.

“Put your hands on your head –”

Barnes shoots them both.

“Nice.” Skye lifts a hand toward the car and there’s a ripple of…. something. A feeling of great force travelling away from them, and the car groans as its side starts to crumple, and it’s shoved to the side out of their way.

“Why didn’t you do that before?” Barnes demands, divesting the agents of their weapons.

“Trying not to kill anyone, remember. People are fragile. I misjudge it, I could crush their chests, put broken ribs through their lungs, fracture a skull…”

“You keep being so precious, you’re going to wind up in a chair.”

“What kind of chair?”

“Forget it.”

At least he now knows why she didn’t have her hands on a weapon. Her hands _are_ the weapon.

They hotwire a car across the street. Barnes drives. He’s mentally making a list of what he knows about Skye. She’s government trained – the woman had referred to her as a Shield agent – but inexperienced enough to have room to improve. That’s a good sign; means any bad habits won’t be too deeply ingrained and easy to unlearn.

That’s when he realises he’s planning to take her with him. He pauses, considers that thought, and decides why the hell not. She’s on the run, like him, with powers that make her a target. She could do with someone looking out for her, and he…

… he flounders for a reason…

…he could use the camouflage of a second person. He nods, pleased with this reasoning. A man travelling alone attracts attention. A young couple is easier to blend in, and there are still a lot of things he doesn’t understand about this century, which Skye can help him with. Hopefully she’s good with computers because that’s one skill Hydra never saw fit to teach him.

He flicks a look at Skye, who’s rolling down the car window. He’ll have to get her out somewhere deserted so he can assess the extent of those explosion-powers. Also shore up those gaps in her training, break down that silly problem she has about killing people, and possibly even teach her some Russian so they can communicate privately in public. With their dark hair and superficially similar colouring, they could pass for brother and sister, which will make cover stories easier.

He finds he’s excited about this. Or something that he assumes is excitement. There’s so much he can _teach_ Skye. He can take care of her, protect her the way he couldn’t protect… But that thought trails off, ended before it began. A lot of his thoughts do that, heading somewhere and then stopping, stumped by the lack of memory. He’s learned not to think too hard about it.

“You can drop me off downtown,” Skye says, tying her hair back. “May’s going to be going crazy looking for me.”

Barnes doesn’t let his surprise affect his driving. He’s too controlled for that. But he does blink once.

“May?”

“My CO. I was meant to meet up with her last night, then the other Shield showed up and we had to separate. Don’t get caught by them if you can help, by the way. Gonzales doesn’t like Enhanced people anymore than he likes the Innately gifted.”

“Let me get this straight. You want to go _back_ to Shield?”

“Yeah, of course. Coulson’s Shield, not Gonzales’ Shield.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, doll, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I know stupid.”

“Our Shield is different.”

“So they say. Maybe they ask nicely, but dollars to dimes, eventually they’re gonna stop asking, and eventually what they ask you to do isn’t gonna be that nice. That’s how these people work.”

“No, I know them.” Skye says it with all the firmness of someone who’s never been locked in a cage, or had her mind ripped apart. “I trust them. You should come too.”

Barnes snorts.

“Doll, the only reason I’d walk into the arms of another secret organisation is to burn it to the ground and salt the earth.”

 “O-kay. Offer retracted then.” Skye tilts her head and smiles at him. “It’s a shame though. I know Mike would be psyched to have another badass cyborg on the team.”

He argues with her the rest of the drive, but Skye stands firm. She wants to go back to her handlers. She’s so firm about it, Barnes nearly decides she’s already been brainwashed and takes her with him anyway. But she’s too animated, her feelings open to read, so he reluctantly concedes that this really is her decision. A stupid decision, but hers. He’s had enough of his own decisions taken away to know better than to take someone else’s.

He drops her off downtown, and Skye unbuckles her seatbelt then hesitates.

“That woman in the café,” she says. “She called you Sergeant Barnes.”

Barnes lets no flicker of expression cross his face.

“Yes.”

“Was that a yes, she did or a yes she’s right…” Bucky doesn’t answer and Skye continues hurriedly: “I was just going to say, Captain Rogers is in New York right now. He’s at Stark Tower.”

“How did you know that?”

“My boss has a friend who works there. I heard he was going crazy looking for some old friend of his.” Skye pauses, a little pink. “Anyway, thank you, sir. Sergeant. It’s been an honour, being rescued by you.”

“Good luck,” he says as she gets out of the car. “And Skye.”

“Yes, sir?” She looks back, looking so damn naive. It seems impossible he was ever as young as she is.

“They ever start calling you a weapon, don’t hesitate. Get out.”

She smiles, wide and lovely, and a name floats through Barnes mind without context or reason. _Rebecca_.

“If that ever happens, I won’t hesitate, sir. But it won’t happen.”

She disappears into the crowd, and he drives off to ditch the car and brood over his next move. There’s no way in hell he’s following a pretty dame into any version of Shield, no matter how desperately she needed someone watching her dumbass back. No point in screwing both of them over. He just hoped she was smart and skilled enough to get before they completely destroyed her.

But despite being alone for months, the space Skye had filled feels very empty. He has an uncharacteristic urge to talk to someone, which is very unsettling.

Maybe he could go find Rogers in New York. Not face to face, obviously. That would be too close, too soon. But Barnes can observe him from a distance. Maybe gathering intel would help him make a decision. 

It would beat being alone anyway.


End file.
